N0ZJT Station
APRS
My station runs full-time as a position beacon, digipeater, IGate, and weather station — one of the local APRS anchor points for Fayette County. Here's what it does and how to see it live.
What my station does
Position
Beacon
Reports my station's location on the standard North American APRS frequency, 144.390 MHz.
Coverage
Digipeater
Repeats other nearby stations' packets, extending APRS range across Fayette County.
Bridge
IGate
Bridges local RF packets onto APRS-IS, the internet backbone that makes stations visible on sites like aprs.fi worldwide.
Weather
Weather Station
Reports live local weather conditions over APRS alongside position data.
Temp —
Gust —
Rain 24h —
What APRS actually is
APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) is a way for amateur radio stations to share position, status, weather, and short messages in near real time, all over a shared VHF frequency. Every packet sent by any station can be heard by every other station in range, and digipeaters like mine relay those packets further so a whole region can stay connected on one channel — no cellular network or internet connection required for local coverage.
IGates like mine take it a step further by bridging heard packets onto APRS-IS, the internet-connected side of the network. That's what makes it possible to see any APRS station — mine included — from anywhere in the world on a site like aprs.fi, not just from another radio nearby.
Why it matters locally. A digipeater and IGate running full-time means other APRS users in Fayette County get better coverage and better internet visibility for their own stations too — not just mine. It's shared infrastructure, the same way a repeater is.
You don't need a license to listen. FCC rules only require a license to transmit on amateur radio frequencies — receiving and decoding APRS packets is completely open to anyone. That makes it one of the easiest ways to get a feel for ham radio before ever getting licensed yourself.
Ways to watch, no license required
- Just use a map. aprs.fi (web or their mobile app) or APRSDroid (Android) show live traffic with zero radio hardware — someone else's IGate is already doing the receiving for you.
- Decode it yourself. A cheap RTL-SDR USB dongle (around $25-30) plus free software like Direwolf can pull APRS packets straight off the air on a laptop. I run YAAC for this myself — it decodes, maps, and logs traffic locally.
Reading the map
Every station on the map has a symbol that tells you what it is at a glance — a car for a mobile station, a house for a home base, a specific icon for weather stations, digipeaters, and so on. The full symbol table is part of the APRS spec, so it's consistent across every APRS map and app, not just aprs.fi.
Beyond just position
Tracking a station's location is the most visible use of APRS, but the protocol carries more than that. Messaging lets stations send short text messages to each other over RF, station to station, with no cell service or internet required — genuinely useful when normal infrastructure is down. Objects and bulletins let a station broadcast information that isn't tied to a physical location at all, like a weather bulletin or an event marker, which is how National Weather Service warnings sometimes show up directly on APRS maps.
Getting started with APRS
- Get licensed. A Technician class amateur radio license is the minimum requirement — W0OEL runs regular licensing classes if you're starting from zero.
- Get a tracker or TNC. Dedicated APRS trackers, or a radio plus a TNC (hardware or software, like Direwolf) and a laptop or Raspberry Pi, will get a station on the air.
- Program 144.390 MHz. That's the standard North American APRS frequency — set your beacon interval reasonably (once every several minutes is typical) so you're not flooding the shared channel.